Top chefs train school cooks to prepare healthy meals

There is more to modern-day school lunch than the soggy chicken fingers and extra-boiled green beans past students may remember.

By David Riley

There is more to modern-day school lunch than the soggy chicken fingers and extra-boiled green beans past students may remember.

Proof was on display yesterday in a cooking classroom at Framingham State College, where school food service workers sifted, mixed and baked with instruction from some of the culinary world's top talent.

The school cooks - including nine from Ashland - worked alongside Rudolph Speckamp, a certified master chef from the Culinary Institute of America, and David Bruno, an instructor from the same school.

The upstate New York institute is one of the top cooking schools in the country.

The goal is to teach school cooks how to prepare healthy meals that meet evolving nutrition guidelines, while also making sure food is tasty despite reducing salt, fat and sugar, Speckamp said.

``It has to be attractive to the young people so that they're going to eat it,'' said Speckamp, one of only 62 chefs in the U.S. to hold his prestigious master chef title. ``They can follow the recipe, but if the food doesn't taste good, even the best recipe won't help.''

Jackie Richwein, a food service manager at Ashland Middle School, said she felt lucky to attend the workshop as she mashed bananas for a recipe. Ashland got a state grant that allowed so many cooks from the town to attend.

``Basically we're trying to find healthier ways, healthier alternatives to make meals while still meeting all of our requirements,'' she said. ``It just makes you want to do better with your job and the kids.''

The expert chefs came to Framingham through a partnership between the John C. Stalker Institute of Food and Nutrition at the college and the Mississippi-based National Food Service Management Institute.

Both groups educate food service professionals on child nutrition.

With a grant from the state Department of Education, they organized four workshops for school cooks, said Theresa Stretch, a food and nutrition specialist with the federally funded Food Service Management Institute. The first workshop was earlier this month.

The sessions drew school food service workers from Groton, Swansea and Billerica, Shrewsbury, Worcester and South Easton.

School chefs return to work with a better understanding of which foods they should be provide students - especially plenty of fruit and veggies - and the nutrition science behind federal and state requirements, Stretch said.

``It takes a lot of skills and knowledge for those individuals that are serving that food to children,'' said Pat Luoto, director of the Stalker Institute at the college.

In the past 10 years, school lunch requirements have evolved to focus much more on nutrition, Luoto said. Schools also are serving meals to more students with special needs and food allergies, Stretch said.

As Bruno and Speckamp led a demonstration on how to bake rich-looking muffins and biscuits, Stretch said all the recipes used in the program are researched, approved and provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

``You may see a certain food and say, `My God, should we be serving that?''' Stretch said. ``In reality, they have been designed to reduce the sodium, fat and sugar content.''

The group focused on baking yesterday, from sweet potato plum squares to blueberry muffins. Speckamp and Bruno demonstrated how to get muffins to round nicely on top instead of rising into less appetizing peaks.

``You dress it up, it makes it a little more appetizing,'' Speckamp said. ``It appeals to all the five senses. First we look at food, we see, then we smell, then we taste.''

Three-day program also covered entrees that fit within a school budgets - plenty of chicken dishes and a new spin on meatloaf, Speckamp said.

Though the cooks were using government recipes, knowing the right cooking techniques goes a long way, Speckamp said.

``Cooking is a little bit like music,'' he said. ``When Liberace plays the piano and I read a sheet of music, it doesn't come out the same.''